the galah

yes thats the one. i hadn't thought of the paywall thing. .

i was reading an interesting article on the state of british racing this week. I don't know how to post it but it was"foreign buyers bet big on british horses as domestic racing declines" it seems over there they also have a proposed increase in tax rate on sports betting(including racing) to worry about which is currently being considered by parliament. The government has propsoed it go to the same rate as on line casno's,from 15% to 21 %. that would be a major blow if it happens and with all the rules and regulations around betting agencies keeping an eye on punters spending and credit ratings and the like,the bad news seems to be piling up in recent times. the article also really saying its the foreigners with all the money who are propping up the industry more for prestige,as stakemoney in britain is not looking good in comparison to elsewhere. foreign buyers and owners still willing to pay top $ but not the numbers going to british owners anymore. interestingly it says the number of foals being born has fallen by a quarter since 2022. Horses in training down 8% since 2020 and betting revenue down 6.8% last year when compared to the year prior.

Now i see they've done a report in queensland into the issues they are having at the $86 million ipswich greyhound facility. but like nsw,the queensland racing minister is also sitting on it and has not currently released the report, that facility ,with its 3 tracks,1 a 2 turn,1 a 1 turn and the other a straight track,having had `16 dog deaths on the track in just over 6 months. they've even had serious issues with the surface on the straight track the head of racing queenslands racing department quoted as saying"this series of incidents have eroded public and stakeholder confidence in the industry." Not the best of headlines again but a couple of the state governmants over there have invested a lot into the greyhound industry.But with all the issues they still are having, it doesn't seem to have helped the industries public perception at all.

theres too much congestion when you have horses off marks spaced only 10 metres apart. it would be ok if there was only one line of horses on those marks,but often there are 2 lines, or horses off ur as well. It appears the problem is compounded by the track not being as wide as some tracks as evidenced by the lower number of horses they can fit onto a front line at motukarara. And while i haven't taken much notice of how they parade pre start,i assume they do the same as they do every other race where they have 2 circles off each mark.. Well as i've pointed out many times,the 2 circle formation has its negatives and one is when they turn in the congestion is greater and when you have horses starting on marks 10 metres apart,congestion is even greater.. but would having a smaller field size have helped congestion yesterday. Well if they had reduced yesterdays field size to 15 instead of the 17 they had,how would that have helped? Because the 2 less horses who would have been eliminated would have been the only 2 who started off the front and it could be argued that wouldn't have changed anything whatsoever for the better congestion wise, for those behind them,as it wasn't the 2 front line markers causing any of that. personally i thinkif you look at the way the starter does those starts,they are a bit of a debacle. The horses off the ur are starting behind the horses who are supposed to be starting 10m behind them,you have starters assistants running interference to those who start on marks behind where the starters assistants are. It shouldn't have to be for a horse and driver to guess which way a starters assistant is going to move in front of them,after the start ,like happened yesterday. so whats the answer. well,they need to have a greater distance between the marks the horses start from. i.e. 15 metres instead of 10 metres. If they do that they would just have to have a front line,a 15m line and a 30 metre line,instead of a front,10m,20m and 30m.And why not have a pbd in a stand to have the horses who were higher assessed,drawn the second line off the 15m and 30m.If they are to keep the marks 10m apart they need to parade them differently in a 1 circle formation for combined marks. They did a 1 circle formation for decades so it should be no biggie. as to the trifecta pool The figure you give is a huge pool by normal starndards.as you say,the big field must have helped,but also as i've pointed out before,when there are delays to a start,all pools will increase. And when there are significant delays,there can be significant increases in tote pool size. Thats why that fella from the usa said ,the simplest way to increase turnovers is crib an extra minute before they start to line them up. He said when the meadowlands changed to start there races at the carded time,it was one of the worst financial decisions they had made.i know over here they have that many races on trackside,but as i've said before,even changing the starting procedure to say have a flashinglight come on when the all clear comes through then have them do not 1,but 2 rounds before they come in,is a way of increasing turnover while still getting the trackside coverage.i don't know why they don't do something as simple as that.the worst thing any meeting can di to keep turnover down is have then coming up behind the mobile when they are only jst ticking on 0 seconds to the start time. Places like southland could improve their turnover if they just put another starter in charge who wasn't as strict on starting on time.

you don't hear people booing these days on a racetrack but thats probably because theres never that many there. actually going back a few years, people did use to boo occasionally when a winner would come back to the birdcage or just after they passed the post. Most didn't take it too seriously. Actually,we had a horse win the main race at our local track about 20 years ago and what was noticeable after the commentator concluded his commentary, was the high level of noise from chatter and some loud booing that could be heard.If i happen to watch that video,it always makes me smile as to the atmosphere and also as i wonder why some people would be upset about the win.But i think a bit of booing just added to the atmosphere and thats what people did at sporting events more back then. i remember bob negus gettting the booing treatment one night when he won a race at addington. i wasn't there that night,but knew someone who was and it got a lot of press coverage. Apparently,he walked through the public stand bar area which was full and he got as major roasting from most in there.I'm not sure whether he was a poor driver or simply didn't try much,but every punter seemed to think he only tried to win very rarely on that horse and whether people liked it or not,i'm sure most punters weren't surprised about what happened.Actually i remember i had an uncle who told me his mate had a big treble finishing on scholar one day after a couple of roughies won the first couple of legs. Scholar in front half way down the back,travelling easy,thinking is this the day he wants to win,but no he poped in behind and seemd happy not to look for a run in the straight.actually i rmember not long after that,one boxing day,being at the races at ashburton. that was the day when the car parks were totally full and everywhere was packed on course. Well this day bob negus just happened to be walking past in the public car park and a punter walked past him and gave him a serve about not trying and the 2 got into an argument,with mr negus telling the fella he should be fighting in the falklands war,.funny the things you remeber. I do remeber negus being regarded as a top trainer and even though not the punters friend as far as driving went,he actually of course won a nz cup with armalight. He sure did get the last laugh as far as driving that winner. actually thinking about thazt ashburton boxing day meeting. I remember going there about 20 years ago and the place was packed right past theend of the straight. It was like the boxing day trots at ashburton were where it was at socially and that was only 20 years ago. Young people werer there to party as well on that very hot afternoon.They raced the same day as westport ,with westport starting earlier. Well it was amazing to see the decline in attendance within a few years and they eventually canned the meeting.The decline in recent years has been really sad when you think back to not that long ago.

what about the effort of y atchama and morrie in the first race today. Jumped out and the jockey was no where to be seen in the saddle for the first 10 metres,then popped back on. Then took the short cuts thereafter and still got up to win.You don't see a recovery like that often.

the slot races were an example of cambridge adding on substanial debt,when it already had substanial debt which it was struggling with.. Thatt not smart,its dumb,irrespective of where the club is situated. your argument seems to be based around where the clubs are located.Thats seems to be the way hrnz view it as well. Our argument is about finances,not where the club is located. finances is a basic. Hrnz should not have lower acceptable standards of finacial management based on where a club is located.But they do.Thats always been the main point.

i think part of the reason many in the south island have a negative view of northern harness racing is because they see the support hrnz is giving them,knowing hrnz is doing nothing to tell them they are going to need to operate in a way that doesn't drain the overall industries(especially the south islands)future financial resources. i personally think ,because hrnz is so away with the fairies,auckland and cambridge,instead of facing reality and looking for solutions,instead are looking for handouts. in other words,all that is happening is hrnz are bailing them out until hrnz themselves will have financial issues in maintaining stake levels everywhere. so theres no doubt those clubs have huge issues,but they don't need to spell the end of the clubs,quite the contrary.they still are asset rich,for the moment. they should be using their current crisis to restructure and come up with a plan for a sustainable future.But they aren't because hrnz is allowing them to continue to operate irresponsibly.it can be done if they had to. as you've said many times brodie,what business would ever allow itself to be run in the way hrnz is running things currently.Thats where i think the main problem is.

cambridge appears to be a club that ignored the finanical stress it was under and decided a good strategy was spend more on projects that would add to their financial stress.,e.g. on the grins. And who could blame them. All the media and hrnz said how clever they were. The cambridge thing,whatever its level of financial issues, appears just aother example of why the average south island harness follower thinks some of those that administer harness racing and the harness media ,treat them like they haven't got a brain.

won't cambridge lose a significant income source next year when the greyhound come to an end . anyone got any good news about cambridge ? .Maybe the time is approaching, when a press release from mr steele telling us how every thing is looking positive,is needed again.

i see mr wood,the man who should have the inside word on cambridge, being a cambridge man,has again on the other channel made comment about things to come out soon. Not that long ago he was hinting at the financial situation of the club being very poor and what may happen as a result to the running of the cambridge club.. When they ran those grins races they told us how great it was for the industry and the club.Adding significant more debt onto their already large pile of debt,so what,they had a good night out and the aussies took home the cash to aussie. But hey,those grins races are great for the industry(so they tell us),so the smart people keep telling us. I wonder what their derinition of smart is.. To the people the harness media always tell us are so smart ,debt is just a word. A word can't hurt you,and if it does,take a job elsewhere. besides,i'm sure mr steele is saddling up his horse, money bags again,right as this moment.Just in case he has to ride into the cambridge area and save the day with a bit more HRNZ cash while en route to another auckland meeting.

i agree. if they adjusted stake money to reflect the small fields at the likes of cambridge and in those 2 yer old races throughtout nz,then people would just accept them for what you say they are and not moan much.I suggested they do that a while ago. all they have to do is adjust the penalty rating points to reflectthe stake levels. it seems a very simple solution but hrnz have shown they currently aren't into factoring profit /loss to the industry as a whole..

i just had a look at the peter profit headlines. one of his latest headlines was about the forbury money having to be retained for use in the southern region and it being a nightmare for mr steeles plans for auckland. i don't have access to his stories,but the headlines are entertaining enough. Whereas he isn't always accurate on some stories,in the past hes been pretty accurate in his reporting about the auckland trotting club.

the logic hrnz use,is numbers are down so much up north, so lets provide as many racing opportunities as they possibly can,that way those left competing can have access to racing where they are far more likely to earn a quid than they would be elsewhere,so that way they will maintain participation levels and stay where they are.Those north island people must know they are on to a good thing.long may it last they must say to themselves. its a bit like there not being many customers going to restaurants in a particular town,so lets open up some more ,that way the customers will have more choice and the compettiojn will keep the prices down,that way customer numbers will be maintained. then those outside the upper north island marvel at how irrelavant hrnz seem to view whether meetings run at a profit or loss. Thats the thing most can't quite understand. but you have to give it to hrnz. They have stuck to their guns and i think have outstayed most of the social media naysayers.After all,on this forum at least, people seem to have said to themselves ,well theres only so many times you can say something with enthusiasm before you realise hey,whats the point.Apathy i think is the word to descibe how many are feeling about the industry.

i personally think theres quite a difference between the cambridge and marburg. marburg fields size is nearly always 8 or 9, whereas at cambridge you get mostly fields of 6. 5 of the 6 races at cambridge this week have only 6 runners starting. Field size is such a relevant indication of whether you have too much racing in particular areas. But HRNZ number crunchers just don't seem to have cottened on to that. The cambridge horses are better but the marburg drivers are as good as the cambridge drivers and drive with more intent to obtain the best possible outcome. Marburg i think is the best of the queensland product if judged on the intent of drivers and the lack of team driving you see. but that first race at marburg was such a mickey mouse affair when you saw how the mobile and starters crew people handled the situation of the horse with gear issues. i agree t mcmullen normally a good driver to follow at marburg,just her effort in the first race ,before they abandoned it,was below par.

i actually watched the first race at marburg. I actually think racing at marburg seems more competitive and everyone has a pre conceived plan of trying ,at least a bit more than they do at the likes of albion park in my opnion.. so marburg is an ok look for the industry from a betting perspective. but race 1 run yesterday wasn't. i had a very small bet on the race and backed the favorite to win ,it was paying $2.80. well they had a false start the first time as the 4 horse never looked like pacing away,then in the re start you could tell it would break,but it mangaed to get to the first bend before doing so,then unfortunately checked 4 of the other runners enough to make you think there was only 3 chances left. The favorite had taken the lead easily early. Well they had only gone 300m with the front 3 about 10 and 20 lengths in front of the 4th and 5th horses, when t mcmullen did what she sometimes does and hooked off the inside and attacked the favorite for the lead. Normally you would think well fair enough,but this time It seemed such a dumb move as she was on the outsider and was attacking the favorite when clearly her horse was being pushed to go faster than it could,so hey, you could tell it was gone as soon as she did that,but they still ran along very fast for about a round like that befiore she sent out the white flag and was stopping badly. Well because they had run along so fast,the field remained spread out and the favorite looked like it was going to win by the length of the straight the way it was travelling. But then they called the race off with a round to go,because the number 4 horse had broken again when at the back,had been taken to the outside of the track by its driver with a gear issue and the mobile vehicle and starter crew vehicle decided to park up on the track while they gave that bloke a hand .The stewsrds saw this and decided to call the race off with a round to go. So if you looked at the video,you could see the horse that had the gear problem had gone on tis merry way well before the horses in the race got to where it had been,,but the starters assistants just stood next to their vehicle in the middle of the track nonchalontly walking back to the vehicle just before the race was called off. They didn't even try to get out of the way after the race was called off,just watching the field run past them,even though none of the horses in the race shied at it,maybe knowing the race had been called off ,thinking well whats the pointb of driving off as its a no race anyway. it was all rather strange.i didn't bother to watch any more races from marburg after that,just changed channels again.

yes i get that.but the thread started off just referring to the effect of geo blocking on racing turnover. my point ,that i made when i joined the thread , was the gain from the geo blocking,certainly from entains point of view,was expected to come from sports betting and that racing may be able to ride the coat tails of that sports betting gain through the trickle down effect. But you seem to think not as much will trickle down as i had hoped.anyways,enjoy the rest of your evening.

well,we've been talking about who provides the new zealand sporting organisations with the money from sports betting. when i suggested,the money came from entain and the nz tab , you said no, its solely the nz tab and that entain got to keep all of their 50% of the sports betting profits and that the nz tab paid the 23% to the nso out of the nz tab's 50% shae of the profits. In other words the nso share came out after the nz tab got its 50% share,not before, as if it was before,then that would have meant entain were contributing,which you said,no they weren't to. then i said, if entain could see they could make so much money from sports betting through geo blocking,then why didn't the nz tab ask the nz governmant to do the geo blocking without the need for entain,thus getting to keep all that extra revenue the geo blocking created. Then you mentioned the 2029 projected figure as if that was a good thing and i came back and again said well why didn't the nz tab just ask for the geo blocking and take all the extra profit in the future ,thus not needing to give away hundreds of millions over the next 25 years. then you seemed to say,hey you've lost me. And then i assume you went and took 2 panadol.

so,your saying, the government negotiated a deal with entain ,which nz racing was all for,to give away a % of profit from sports betting ,so they could get the one off payments and get a smaller % of a big pie,instead a bigger % of a smaller pie pre entain,.,due to the geo blocking. then the obvious question i would ask is. if entain invested in the nz tab because they saw the potential profits that could be generated from the nz tab having a monopoly on nz sports betting after the geo blocking,then why didn't the nz tab just go it alone and have the governmant introduce geo blocking without the need for entain. if your answer is,because of the initial $150 million payment and the 20 million payment from the geo blocking,then it still doesn't make sense if you look at the long term. I'm not saying your wrong,it just doesn't seem to be that clever to me.

i get that. i never said the nz tab was owned by nz racing. i can reasonably argue racings past association with the nz tab is the reason why racing currently get a cut of the sports betting money. Its not a spurios argument i make. Its real.

google and AI,seems they don't agree. so you seem to be saying pre entain the nz tab paid the new zealnad sporting organisations their share from the tab's 100%,then after entain took over,the nz tab pay the nso's the same %,but from only a 50% share. so you appear to be saying the nz governmant negotiated a deal where sports betting would have to double for the tab to be making the same amount as it was pre entain. at least thats what it sounds like you are saying to me.

i just goggled it. and if we can trust google to get it right,entain does contibute a share of its sports betting profits to nz sports organisations. If it didn't and they took out the 50% profit prior to the nz tab distributing to the nso's,then that would mean the nz tab would be gettiing only half of the profits from sports betting that it was prior to partnering with entain. So surely they,nz racing and the govt and nz tab, wouldn't have negotiated a contract with entain where sports betting returns to the racing industry could be , in reality be reduced and nz racing worse off?

yes,but the tab was set up for racing ,hence it can be argued racing deserves the cut of the revenue generated from sports betting that it currently receives.Each sports organisation has a negotiated contract with the tab as to how much they receive.i posted what they were getting in another thread not that long ago,i can't remember whether it was a harness or gallops thread. from memory each national sporting organisation used to get about 5 years ago a minimum of 23 % of net betting revenue and an additional 3%,which goes to sport nz who distribute to all the sporting codes.NSO's can try and negotiaet a greater %,but that wasn't guaranteed. of course net betting revenue is effected by whether favorites have a run,as if they did,gross betting revenue could be high, but net betting revenue not so good. I think some nso would have tried to add a gross betting revenue clause in their contracts,but we don't know what is actually in any contracts between the tab and the sporting organisations. and then of course the main reason entain got into nz,was their share of the revenue they believed would be generrated from the sports betting and entain ,being a partner of the nz tab isn't going to want to give away greater % of profit and will be pretty hard nosed in negotiations with sports groups,which will help the nz tab being their partner. so sports betting is obviously of significane to nz racing and we are fortunate that is the case and that the tab/entain have control now of the nz sports betting. Just how significant is too early to tell you would think,maybe its a big deal,maybe its not. Racings desperately needs every bit of revenue it can get,. the thing about what we are discussing is,the authorities never seem transparent enough for us to make informed conclusions.And you get the impression, thats because they are only guessing.So that doesn't fill anyone with much confidence.

The sports betting increase through the nz tab,since the geo blocking,is obviously going to be a factor in helping nz racing. Exactly how much the nz racing industry will get from increased sports turnover seems unclear at this stage,but you would assume it will significant,just how significant is unclear. for racing,it was always going to be questionable as to whether the increases in turnover on the nz tab,were going to make up for the lost revenue they were getting from the overseas bookies,who previously took betting and paid fees, on the nz racing product. then you have to factor in the % increase the thoroughbred and harness will get from receiving the greyhound industries share ,once they finish. And i do agree with hesi when he talks about supply and demand as regards the horse pool available for racing. Thats something i can't understand why the harness side don't stress more. I.e. there is going to be greater demand for the lower numbers of horses being bred,whatever the quality. personally i think the gallops administrators are being more fiscally responsible currently than the harness,and will be in a better position going forward. But i'm still like you,i doubt both sides of the industry can sustain their current level of funding. But we still can't really know for sure until the impact of the factors i've mentioned play out.

when the ladbrokes racing club closed the aussie ones were either sold or sent to nz .